“In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.”

—  Terry Pratchett, book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book." by Terry Pratchett?
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett796
English author 1948–2015

Related quotes

Edward Bulwer-Lytton photo

“In science, read, by preference the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician

Caxtoniana: Hints on Mental Culture (1862)

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Other Inquisitions

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"
Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time — this one, for instance — as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo

“No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

Oscar Wilde photo

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man

Samanta Schweblin photo

“I learned to write reading North American literature, I love your literature, but I have this feeling that if a country only reads its own literature, it will run out of oxygen.”

Samanta Schweblin (1978) Argentine writer

On her encouraging that Americans read literature beyond their country in “Samanta Schweblin on Revealing Darkness Through Fiction” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-on-revealing-darkness-through-fiction/ in LitHub (2017 Jan 12)

Gene Wolfe photo

“My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Northrop Frye photo

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

Susan Sontag photo

“Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)
Context: To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck. Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is, the zone of freedom.
Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

Harold Pinter photo

“I hate brandy… it stinks of modern literature.”

Harold Pinter Betrayal

Source: Betrayal

Related topics